This is the story of TFW Athens coach Whitney Holley.
Before joining SBG, Whitney was frustrated with her weight.
Busy finishing her doctorate (in Music) in 2012, Whitney found herself heavier than she had ever been. She not only felt unhealthy—she says that she would have struggled to walk up a short flight of stairs at that point—but had become uncomfortable in her own skin. Whitney decided to make a change, to regain control over her health and to rediscover the sense of confidence that she deserved to feel.
Whitney had tried a few different workouts over the years, either at home by video or at the campus gym, but she never found a sustainable routine. She says that she rarely made it past a month in any particular program. “It finally occurred to me,” she says, “that the only way I was going to stick with anything long enough to actually get better was to find something I enjoyed doing.” Having taken a few Muay Thai classes in the past, Whitney knew that she was interested in kickboxing. She thought kickboxing might be a habit worth revisiting. Developing a skill, she realized, might help her “forget” that she was working out and make sure that she stuck with her routine.
Whitney set out to find a gym where she could train kickboxing and discovered SBG. Being a musician, she was worried about taking care of her hands. SBG offered her the facilities and instruction that would ensure a quality workout while preserving her hands: “Where better to learn to throw a punch correctly,” she asks “than from people who want to be able to do it for a long time?” Whitney is now one of those people who have been throwing punches for a long time and hopes to continue doing it. She teaches classes at the gym now. She has run multiple 5ks and Spartan Sprints. She has organized her own Savage Race each of the last two years. She even cross-trains in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. She never would have thought she could do any of these things just a few years previously.
In her words: “I am strong now and I am proud of it. People comment on my muscles and I am proud of them, but more than anything I am proud of the mental and physical work that I have done to get them.”
Here are a few tips that Whitney wanted to share from her experience:
- Never be afraid to ask for help. There is someone around SBG Athens who knows the answer to your question on any subject. MMA, nutrition, physical therapy, construction, photography, accounting, law, music…Strength comes from being able to admit you can’t do it all on your own and you don’t know all the answers. That’s what the tribe is for.
- If something doesn’t go the way you want it to, don’t make excuses. Ask “Why?” Did I do what I needed to in order to make it happen? Did I eat well? Get sleep? Lift more than once in the last two weeks? Go to class? Practice the technique? If the answer is “no” then I didn’t earn it.
- You are not your past. There are hard habits to break and there are things that you may fight with for the rest of your life but your past does not define you; your will to change your future does.
Do you struggle with some of the same things with which Whitney struggled? You CAN make that change and TRANSFORM your life also!
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